For all those modellers who have at some stage cursed warped
plastic hulls , shrunken resin and fiddly photoetch.... Take a step
back ... and view and honor the lifetime achievement of Phil
Warren which is simply breath-taking...

Phil Warren from Blandford Forum in Dorset UK
has since completing constant scale first ship model in 1948
been adding continuously to his matchstick fleet so that the collection
has now burgeoned to over 500 different ship models.... ALL BUILT ENTIRELY
of the material of a MATCHBOX....

All the ships are of the worlds navies POST 1945-- which
makes for interesting viewing to see survivors from the WW1 Royal
navy... The Ships of the Royal navy make up the largest part of the collection,
there are however numerous models of the the US Navy, the Russian
navy, the French navy with representatives of Spain,
Italy, Germany and all the Commonwealth navies. Each and every model, both
ships and the many hundreds of aircraft are all handmade to a constant
scale of 1/300 using nothing else but the matchsticks and the
wood from the matchboxes. Absolutely no other material is used...!! All
painting is done by hand, squadron markings and numbers are all done without
transfers....- this alone is mind boggling!

Phi's fleet can be seen at most of the major UK modelboat shows, it
will be a special feature at the modelboat exhibition part of the
INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL OF THE SEA being held at Portsmouth
UK June 30 -July 03 http://www.festivalofthesea.co.uk/